Original Melting Pot

It seems that Americans are born taking pride in the idea of the melting pot. The American Melting Pot allows each and every citizen to feel that no matter their culture, their beliefs, or their heritage, they are valued as an important ingredient in a larger matter. However, something not quite publicized is that the Americas were not the first great melting pot society. Ancient cultures have long been experts at assimilating new religious and political regimes to create a much stronger union. The famous Silk Road can be viewed as one of these great melting pots that would change much of Europe and Asia at the height of many an empire.

The Silk road established a route that could, in theory reach all the way from the Chinese city of Luoyang near the Pacific Ocean to Tyre on the Mediterranean Sea. Although seldom traveled to their whole length by single merchants, these roads still allowed for the transportation of much besides wealth. Culture traveled with merchants, and most merchants coming from India traveled with Buddhism in their hearts and spread the religion across Asia. Soon western China would be home to Buddhist cities and temples.

However, Buddhism was not immune to the effects of the melting pots. Secular affairs in wealthy cities neighboring the Silk Road rose in number although original Buddhism had supposedly shunned material world. In some of the northwest regions of India, Buddhism met with the remnants of Alexander and Buddha's statues became slightly Greco-Roman in nature. A Greco-Roman son of Zeus (Herakles) was adopted by Buddhists of the area to represent one of the divine protectors of Buddha.

However, as culture is allowed to transit from place to place with greater speed, so is disease. In today's world we are always bombarded with this fear as more and more diseases spread with greater speed and the word epidemic is thrown out so often that it is rare to watch the news without hearing something of it. The Silk Road on the other hand gave rise to perhaps one of the most feared diseases ever found-the Black Death. After the Mongol control of the Eurasian landmass came to an abrupt end, interactions between Asia and Europe increased as under one empire the advantages of long distance trade became apparent. The Black Death was the result, a series of diseases that are believed today to be comprised mostly of bubonic plague, anthrax of other epidemics. It is believed, that within 4 years 1/3 of Europe was killed by the Black Death...4 years. The Melting Pot failed to assimilate that one.

Whether it be the American Melting Pot which is credited with creating a diverse and dominant culture in today's world or the Silk Road, cultural collision existed. Some cultures resisted and sought to remain true to their roots. Most of them aren't around anymore although a few likely exist to some degree. Cultures, disease, the good comes with the bad, but as the test of time as the example, those cultures that adopt new practices and assimilate new ideas are the ones that will become the greats.
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I cannot find much information of Vajrapani that makes much sense to me, Robert Strayer's textbook Ways of the World: A Brief Global History is where my info comes from or you can feel free to check wikipedia at your leisure.

For a brief Chinese version on the effects of the Silk Road please follow this link
http://library.thinkquest.org/13406/sr/